RE: First Financial Advice Now Cake
Just what kinds of things does he have you doing?
Pretty obvious stuff really. Finding out what the numbers actually are. For example, John has a pension through work and we have no idea how much it is worth or will pay. We have no idea how much his State pension will be either.
There are a couple of savings account that I couldn't be bothered to re-open when the 12 months term ran out and I need to do that.
We have a rental property but have no idea how much that is worth so need to get that valued. The same with our home.
Also, I'd like to find out the rental value of it since I have an idea to rent it out for 6 months and travel off the income but I don't know if that's really possible.
also, we have no idea how much money we would need in retirement so he helped us by suggesting how to take out best guess at that. so now we need to get on top of all our spending and see what and how we spend on. That sort of thing.
The meeting yesterday was more a get to know each other and some ideas of what we might want to look at. it was free and the next meeting will be too.
At that one we should have all our figures together and we'll take it from there. He said, it may be that that is all we need to to do and won't need his help past that so we'll see.
The lead up to it was pretty emotional for me. I was quite tearful on and off all day. But he gave me the thing I wanted most which was reassurance that we will be OK and not living off beans in our retirement. 😊
We got involved in a property investment about 20 years ago that failed in the last crash and were left with a massive debt borrowed against our home. Plus, it was supposed to provide our retirement income.
Since then we've been plodding on working to get back on a level keel but when I looked at the figures, yesterday it really upset and panicked me all over again.
However, as you can tell from the above, i wasn't looking at the full picture.
I'm still not out of the woods in terms of the fear but at least I feel we will come out of this with a realistic picture of what our situation is.
We've been trying to find a financial adviser for years but no-one I met and asked was particularly enthusiastic about theirs. Until I met a woman in a yoga class at the beginning of last year, who was just on the way to meet hers. She she was very happy with him so I decided to give him ago. it took the best part of 2 years to get around to it though!
But I'm happy now I've done it. 😁
Two pensions available upon retirement, a rental property, a home, a savings account to reopen, he's working, you're at least STEEMing if not something more—without knowing any numbers I look at that and see quite a bit of positive. Debt and living expenses notwithstanding, I think you have a pretty good base to work from, and since I don't know how far off retirement might be, the good thing is, you're looking at it now, beforehand, instead of after or not at all. I know people who had no plan.
In my case, I probably need a better plan, but I'm working the one I have now. Get debt low, get expenses low, build up assets and income flow. And apparently rhyme while I'm at it. :)
That was our original plan @glenalbrethsen but we ended up with a lot more debt rather than less, after our attempt to build up assets.
We didn't lose our home though which was a major fear at the time.
I've completed a couple of bits of homework this morning and will try and do something every day as I find it so draining. I'd like to keep the momentum going and see it all the way through.